


Echoing

by micehell



Category: Primeval
Genre: AU (written before S2), F/F, F/M, M/M, MMOM ifc, drama interruptus, wanking ;)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-01
Updated: 2008-05-01
Packaged: 2017-11-12 03:23:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/486112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/micehell/pseuds/micehell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>History has the bad habit of repeating itself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Echoing

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This was partly writtenbefore season 2 started, which is why it goes AU... though, yeah, I'm guessing most of this would never have happened onscreen in canon, either. ;)

Connor has dreamed about this moment. Abbey's hand on his arm, that look in her eyes. But it isn't a dream, her flesh warm against his, the sound of her breathing echoing in his ear. It's even better than the dream, more than he'd ever have hoped for.

Except.

Except Rex is watching, with those beady little eyes following Connor's every move, and he's starting to get a complex here, like the little bastard is judging his technique or something. It's starting to affect Connor's… mood. "Um, Abbey? Um, Rex is… well, Rex is watching us."

Abbey laughs, the sound hot and moist against his ear. "It's just Rex, Connor. Wondering what the mammals are up to."

Which is what Connor thinks, too, but if Rex wants to learn how humans mate, he can just go watch Discovery channel or BBC3 like everyone else. "Yeah, but it's kind of creepy. Him watching like that."

"He's just curious."

"He's a creepy pervert lizard is what he is-" Connor cuts himself off, well aware of his mistake the moment it leaves his mouth. Like so many other times, really, and you'd think he'd learn, but the chances of that appear to as slim as Abbey staying now that he's insulted her stupid lizard.

Connor tries to hide the mistake in a flood of word, but he's not fooling anyone. Later, alone on the couch, still turned on even with the sad state of events, he thinks that maybe Claudia is actually prettier than Abbey. Okay, a little old for him, but still.

He lets that fantasy hold him for a while, like he's holding his dick in his hand, trying to figure if Claudia's hands would be soft and smooth, or harder like his. And, okay, she has that weird little _do we or don't we_ thing going on with Cutter, but maybe she'd like someone a little more… Connor stops stroking himself for a moment, trying to think of something he's a little more than than Cutter. Coming up with darker and better shaven doesn't help his mood much, but then he's younger, too, young enough that he doesn't need much to finish what he's started. Especially when he remembers that Stephen had had that same weird thing with Abbey, and look where that had got him.

Of course, Connor can't say much to that, looking where his own weird thing with Abbey has got him: alone on the couch, softening dick in his hand, a mess all over his best _X-Files_ t-shirt, and Rex, that bastard, is still watching.

 

::::::::::

"I don't know. I can't really explain, I guess. Except… she was older, and worldly, and so very smart. And I thought… well, I thought I could never have you."

Nick just laughs bitterly at the lameness of that excuse. "Explain Abbey then."

Now Stephen looks irritated too. Not that Nick cares, of course. "Abbey was an aberration. I was dying, Nick. Or at least I thought I was. And she's cute, which don't tell me you haven't noticed, especially not the way you hang on Claudia. If I'd been really serious about Abbey, I certainly wouldn't have used the Alison lie to put her off. The Alison that knows I'm mostly gay, and doesn't mind that I tell people she's my girlfriend, considering she's usually thousands of miles away, and a lesbian, too. Does Claudia let you pretend the same thing?"

Okay, maybe Nick does care a little, because an irritated Stephen is pretty damn bitchy. And hitting a little too close to the truth, too, for Nick to keep the moral high ground he's claimed. Still, he's not going down without a fight. "Oh, don't even try to bring Claudia into this."

Stephen looks unimpressed by this stricture, though, and Nick has to give him that it doesn't have much weight. "Okay, I might have been leading Claudia on a little. Just a little. 'Cause she is very pretty. Well, and it burns Helen up… though if I had just _known_ , I could have told her who I was really shagging, and that would have really made her jealous, wouldn't it?"

"That's quite the double standard you have there." And Stephen's moved past irritated into mad, making him even more waspish. But then he shakes his head, as if to wipe out the emotions, his face sliding back into the regret it had worn when they'd started this fight. "Nick… I am sorry. I can't tell you how sorry I am. I regretted it then. I regret it now. If I hadn't thought Helen was dead, if I hadn't thought there was no chance of this coming up and hurting either of us, I would have mentioned it when we got together. I swear."

He looks so earnest, so sweet, and all Nick wants to do is hold him. Well, and other things. He nods. "Okay, I accept your apology."

When Stephen smiles, it's like the sun coming out, and if his puppy dog eyes were hard to resist, this is almost impossible. But Nick still shuts his door in Stephen's face, ignoring the cry as it connects with Stephen's nose.

He doesn't think the nose is broken, though, because Stephen's voice is only a little nasal as he shouts through the door, "You said you accepted my apology!"

"I didn't say I wasn't still mad."

"Oh, come on."

And Stephen's back to irritated again, which just makes it easier for Nick to hold firm. "No, this will show you that I'm serious. If you ever do something like this to me again… this will be permanent."

He listens to Stephen walk away, cursing, and okay, some of it's deserved. It might be different if Nick were angry with Stephen for cheating with his wife, something he has every right to feel. But, if he's being honest with himself, he's really angry because he'd thought of Stephen as _his_ , and his alone. Now he knows that Helen has a part of him, and the sting of jealousy, of possessiveness, burns far sharper than he wants to admit. How warped is that?

Pretty damn warped, he thinks, sitting on his bed, especially considering how hard he is. Stephen has that effect on him, though, even when they're arguing. Sometimes especially when they're arguing. With the sound of his own fast breath echoing hollowly through the room, he almost calls Stephen back in, to let him know through touch and taste and the hard grip of hands who he belongs with. Belongs to. But he has to show Stephen how much this hurt. Let him know that there are consequences to lying. A punishment of sorts.

Lying on the bed, alone, sheets cold, his cock in his hand, an almost perfunctory orgasm trickling down it, he has to wonder exactly who is being punished here.

::::::::::

"Are you surprised to see me?"

Claudia, who at one time had prided herself on rarely being surprised by anything, has had to redefine the word since meeting Cutter. Nick, that is, but this Cutter has managed to surprise her as well. "What are you doing here? I didn't think we'd see you again, not after you made your grand exit through the anomaly. Is there something I can do for you?"

If Claudia's dig about grand exits has any impact, Helen doesn't show it, a sly smile gracing her face. "There just might be something you can do for me, Claudia."

Almost before Claudia knows it, and certainly without having any intention of inviting her, Helen's already in the apartment, looking around curiously. Claudia wonders if that blithe obliviousness to social tact is how the woman managed to snag both Nick and Stephen, but then she shakes her head at herself and the small twinge of jealousy she can't quite help. Taking back the family portrait that Helen's picked up and is studying, Claudia wonders if it's that twinge of jealousy that makes her ask, in the sweetest voice possible, "Are you here to see Nick? Or Stephen perhaps?"

That wipes the smile off Helen's face, but only for a moment. "No, I don't think I'll be seeing the others. Not now. I was just here to check on you. I'd heard you'd… disappeared for a while, but that now you're back."

Claudia frowns. How had Helen found that out? It didn't bode well for security. She'll have to tell Lester about that, which just meant that Monday's going to be less than pleasant. "Yes, well, I'm fine. It wasn't like I was aware of it when it happened."

Helen steps closer, as oblivious to personal space as she is to tact. "Still, it must have been frightening when you found out. To realize how fragile life's hold on us is." She moves closer still, her breasts brushing against Claudia's arm as she almost whispers. "I know how something like that can shake you to the core."

Claudia frowns again. If she didn't know better, she'd think Helen was hitting on her. The hand that comes to rest on her arm, damn near her own breast puts any doubt to rest. Damn it, Helen is hitting on her. Why was it always the weirdos or the gay women? Thinking about Nick, and who she'd seen him kissing the other night, she amends that to weirdos, gay women, and gay men. She sighs. Apparently she's doomed to be a spinster at this rate. Though… maybe Connor.

Helen gets bolder, moving in for a kiss that Claudia was too busy having an epiphany to avoid. Claudia just rides it out, too polite to literally kick Helen out of the apartment.

Until she realizes that it's not actually that bad a kiss. Claudia can feel herself having another epiphany, not to mention one of the better snogs of her life, and she thinks, other issues aside, Helen had saved her life, so she's not quite all bad. Not to mention that she was attractive enough to snag two fairly eligible men -- and at least partially gay men at that -- so maybe…

But the epiphany is lost to the feel of Helen's hands on her ass, gripping tightly, and that's just a little _too_ friendly, too fast for Claudia. And just as quickly as she'd eeled her way in, Claudia had Helen back on the doorstep, the door closing firmly after her. After all, Claudia hadn't gotten to where she was in the home office by always being polite.

Later, though, with the far too familiar hum of her vibrator echoing in her ear, and an orgasm that had come and gone so quickly she could half-believe it had been her imagination, she wonders if maybe…

::::::::::

Helen swims in her pool, the squawks of the hesperonis echoing all around her. Rolling over, she floats, one hand lazily stroking over her breasts, touching herself as she'd done for years. She'd hoped to have someone else to do this with, but humans… she washes her hands of them. She gives them maybe one, maybe two more ages, and they'll be extinct. And who needs them, anyway?

She tells herself that over and over as she fingers herself, and by the time she comes, she can almost believe she means it.

/ficlet


End file.
